Google is starting to place more emphasis on user experience as playing a pivotal role in differentiating good content over bad content. And SEO strategies, including building quality links to your site, put video content on the front lines.

Even though video content can’t be read in the same way as text, it still has a significant impact on SEO. To benefit from video marketing, you will need to put some effort and time into creating high-quality, memorable, and attention-grabbing video content, as well as sharing it across the web.

Videos are visual representations of stories and an essential form of content marketing that should not be overlooked when trying to rank your sites.

Proof of Value

When Google looks at your web pages for keyword relevance, it doesn’t only look at the text on your page. It also looks at what other forms of media you offer the search engines.

The more variety you offer in terms of videos, images, and text, the more value you provide to both search engines and readers.

By 2019, 80% of all Internet traffic will be from videos, according to Cisco.

The inclusion of a video on a web page helps its search engine rankings by:

• Lowering bounce rates because visitors spend more time watching a video
• Increasing click-through rates

Good quality videos are more likely to acquire backlinks from relevant sites.

Video SEO

If you have the best video content on the web, but no one can find it, it has no purpose. Do not overlook the power of YouTube. Remember, it is a search engine that is owned by Google.

When it comes to video SEO, you need to consider the content itself, external action, and its distribution. Some of the ways to optimize your video for search are:

• Put the keyword in the raw video title before uploading it to YouTube
• Use your keywords as tags
• Complete the description section of your YouTube video with a link, keywords, and synonyms of keywords
• Upload a transcription or use closed captions

To better understand how video improves your SEO, read 4 Ways Video Can Improve Dentist Practice’s Dental SEO.

Post Your Videos on Your Website

Don’t stop uploading your videos to YouTube. You will want to embed them on your website on relevant pages.

Do not embed them on a blank page that only includes the video. Surround them with other relevant visual and written content.

Consistency and value are two key areas to focus on when creating, embedding, and sharing your videos.

Potential customers have questions, problems, or challenges for which your product or service is the solution.

If your videos continue to educate your target audience, you will become more credible, be seen as an authority in your niche, and gain search engine rankings.

Drive Traffic to Your Site

There are pros and cons to hosting your videos on YouTube or other third-party sites. However, the SEO benefits cannot be understated. Some of them are:

• It opens your content up to a broader audience as YouTube already has a highly engaged audience
• Your site’s speed will not be slowed down as it could be if you hosted the video on your own domain
• Including relevant links in the video description to your website will drive traffic back to your site
• Offering additional value or a special offer for clicking through to your site will increase the chances that viewers will

Don’t forget about the technical backend information mentioned above to assure that the search engines are getting the right information to the search engine crawlers.

Your video rankings are based on several factors, including:

• The length
• Audience retention
• Number of subscribers
• Title tags
• Description keyword tags
• Like and dislikes

Earn Links

The more places online your video is embedded, shared, or linked to, the better it will rank in the search engines.

When you share your videos on the social web, you will gain backlinks. Videos that are most likely to get shared are:

• Educational
• Entertaining
• Solution-based

As discussed above, including a URL to your website or landing page in the video description on YouTube will help you earn qualified referral traffic.

There is another way to get backlinks from your videos that can be extremely helpful for those who create videos.

Consider a situation where you offer to create a video for an influencer, or an online journalist based on their content. You give them a relevant video; they link back to your site. It’s a win-win situation.

Boost Your Brand’s Social Media Presence

Sharing your videos on social media plays a vital role in your distribution and promotion strategies. Your goal is to get as many video views as possible.

The more shares and views you get, the higher the position of your video in the SERPs.

Improve Your Bottom Line

The ultimate goal of every business is to get more conversions. Videos will help convert more leads to paying customers.

Below are a few statistics that prove this point:

• Products that include videos increase purchases by 144%
• Videos see a 157% increase in organic traffic
• 4 out of 5 consumers say that demo videos help them in making purchase decisions

Adding video content to your marketing and SEO toolbox just makes sense. Increase your brand exposure, increase traffic, get backlinks to your content, and drive more conversions.